Interview: Now behind the camera, Cindy Crawford keeping busy with work, life

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Model Cindy Crawford attends IRIS, A Journey Through the World of Cinema by Cirque du Soleil September 25, 2011 at Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif.

Model Cindy Crawford attends IRIS, A Journey Through the World of Cinema by Cirque du Soleil September 25, 2011 at Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

About Last Night

What has supermodel Cindy Crawford – who was hard to miss in the 1980s and ‘90s thanks to her countless magazine covers and Pepsi and Revlon commercials, not to mention her MTV show “House of Style” — been up to the last few years?

A lot more than you think.

The 46-year-old DeKalb native now focuses on her Style home accessories line, Home furniture line, Meaningful Beauty skin care line, and, of course, her husband and nightlife impresario Rande Gerber, owner of The Whiskey Bar & Grill in the Gold Coast, and their two children.

Crawford is also heavily involved in charity work, spurred on in part by the death of her younger brother from leukemia when she was 10, and will appear Saturday at Starlight Children’s Foundation Midwest’s 26th annual gala at The Standard Club. The foundation helps children with serious illnesses and injuries and helps their families cope through entertainment and education.

“It’s a different kind of busy,” said Crawford, calling Monday from her home in Malibu, Calif. “Early in my career, I was pretty much in front of the camera every day. Now I’m only in front of the camera two days a week. Other days I’m in a product development meeting or production meeting. It keeps me busy, but I’m still able to pick the kids up from school half the time.

“Modern women — we’re very good at keeping ourselves busy. There are PTA meetings, exercising, bake sales at school. I like that my life is not the same every day.”

Crawford still models on occasion, something she once believed would be impossible at her age. She was under the impression early in her career that a model’s career is over at 25 years old. Is that why she always kept her eyes and ears open to the business side of the industry? Maybe. But she admits she also just likes to learn.

(Crawford was her high school class’ valedictorian and earned a scholarship to Northwestern University, which she attended briefly before committing to modeling full time.)

“I started understanding what I didn’t want to do and defined what I did want to do, what my brand will be and what I would like to share,” Crawford said. “It started with fitness videos. That gave me the bug. They ended up being successful: ‘Oh, this is kind of fun to have a voice. I like that.’”

Still, Crawford makes sure not to fill her schedule with meetings and photo shoots. She has a family, after all. And while her daughter might have been impressed the time former Disney Channel star Selena Gomez made a point of wanting to say hello to Crawford, it’s more important to Crawford to be there for her children’s plays and water polo games. And so, she has learned to say “No” more often to gigs.

“I used to be like ‘Why not?’ “ Crawford said. “Now it’s more like, ‘Why?’”